Cavendish pulled from Giro to focus on Tour de France

Britain's Mark Cavendish, who has won three of the 13 stages of the ongoing Tour of Italy, has pulled out of the race to focus on the Tour de France.

Cavendish, who rides for the Columbia team, claimed his third stage win on Friday and despite stressing afterwards that he did not want to withdraw from the race had that decision made for him by team officials.

"Stage 13 will be Cavendish's last stage of the 2009 Giro d'Italia. He will head home today and begin his recovery and lead up to the Tour de France," Columbia said in a statement.

Team manager Rolf Aldag said: "He has had a very successful couple of weeks at the Giro, but he is still young and he has a long career ahead of him."He has already raced 55 days this year and it is our view that the best thing for Mark is to take some recovery now before the Tour."